healing with nutrition
It is a truth that no one can deny; food can harm and food can heal. Food can create health and food can create disease. Everyone knows the saying of Hippocrates: “Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.” The quote offers no explanation or evidence for the suggestion, yet we still quote it over a thousand years later. You see, our bodies are built from what we absorb through our intestinal wall, and that means every cell in our body is made up of recomposed molecules derived from the food we put in our mouths.
Everyone knows this deep down, so no one ever questions the famous saying of Hippocrates. “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.” I hope you will keep this thought in your heart as you read my 4 Tips for Nutritional Healing.
1. Moisturize upon waking.
While water isn’t technically a food, it is an important factor in our metabolic processes and our digestion. Adequate hydration helps the digestion and assimilation of food and the transport of molecules throughout the body. It also removes waste from the body. And because we want not just food to go in, but waste products from the digestion and absorption of that food to come out, proper hydration is vital. Properly filtered water and fresh spring water are good options for hydration. However, there are some more flavorful and delicious options. I’ve put together a short list of some hydration drinks that also provide additional nutritional benefits. I’m interested in getting double the benefit with a single effort!
Herbal teas such as peppermint, ginger, dandelion, nettle, and herbal blends offer various mineral and antioxidant properties.
The Green Juice is made by a juicer machine that will separate a vegetable or fruit into fiber and water. Many of the nutrients pass into the water, making it a great source of antioxidants, minerals, natural sugars, and vitamins. Some people say that this water is more hydrating than tap or bottled water because it is raw and alive, which means it has a slightly different molecular structure and fewer inorganic minerals.
Lemon Water is a quick and easy hydration option. Adding a squeeze of lemon to the water provides an extra boost of vitamin C and is said to help the liver detoxify.
Raw Organic Coconut Water is a natural electrolyte drink that contains approximately 770 mg of potassium per 11.7 oz serving and 37 mg of sodium (according to my coconut water nutrition facts label). Because coconut water is not man-made, it also contains many of the natural conutrients our bodies need to fully rehydrate. Certified organic, raw coconut water is available online to be shipped frozen to your home.
2. Eat more green leafy vegetables
Yes, I’m going to tell you to eat the vegetables! But I’m not talking about broccoli or green beans. I’m talking about the mother of all vegetables, the dark, spicy, bitter, and powerfully nutritious leafy greens! Here are just a few: kale, parsley, sorrel, cilantro, mustard greens, chard, collard greens, romaine lettuce, spinach, arugula, watercress, mint, basil, beet greens, turnip greens, and dandelion greens. If you haven’t heard of half of these, go into a grocery store and start perusing the produce aisle. Then go to a farmer’s market, for crying out loud! There are so many delicious green salads and juices that can be made with these vegetables. One of my favorites is a combination of spinach, basil, and mint with a honey mustard dressing. Just for brainstorming sake, on a daily basis you could work vegetables into your diet through green juices, salads, green smoothies, steamed or sautéed with a little sea salt and butter, or added to soups. Enjoy!
3. Eat more raw probiotic foods
Probiotic foods go by a few different names, such as cultured vegetables, lactofermented drinks, fermented foods, and include such tasty treats as sauerkraut, kim chee, kefir, yogurt, kombucha, amasai, and kvass. Each of these foods has a long history of use by traditional cultures around the world. Probiotic foods are beneficial for three main reasons: the fermentation process gives them a long shelf life, which is why they were used as a source of nutrition in the long winter months, they provide beneficial bacteria and yeast to help with digestion and immunity and due to the fermentation process they contain more nutrition than their unfermented counterparts.
Sauerkraut is a traditional European fermented food made by shredding, salting, and packing cabbage in a ceramic pot and letting it sit in a cold space for weeks to months. In her book Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon explains that “salt inhibits spoilage bacteria for several days while sufficient lactic acid is produced [by lactobacilli varieties] to preserve vegetables for several months.” The fermentation process creates B vitamins and various organic acids that keep the gut’s pH in balance. Sauerkraut has a long shelf life and because cabbage contains vitamin C, it was considered a food staple on long voyages across the ocean to prevent scurvy when fresh fruits were not available.
Sally Fallon reflects in Nourishing Traditions: “Could it be that by abandoning the ancient practice of lactation and insisting on a diet where everything has been pasteurized, we have compromised the health of our gut flora and made ourselves vulnerable to legions of pathogenic microorganisms?” Fortunately, fermented foods are becoming more available in health food stores and farm cooperatives. For more information on how to make your own, check out these helpful books: The Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, and Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz.
4. Eat More Nutrient-Dense Superfoods
“Superfood” has recently become a buzz term and it seems that every food company is trying to promote their food product as the ultimate superfood. I first heard the term from David Wolfe. He states in his book titled Superfoods: “Superfoods are both a food and a medicine; they have elements of both. They are a class of the most potent, super-concentrated, and nutrient-dense foods on the planet. [and] they have more for the money than our regular foods. Superfoods allow us to get more nutrition by eating less.” Some examples of superfoods include: chlorella, aloe, maca, bee pollen, royal jelly, camu camu berry, marine phytoplankton, hemp seed, and kelp.
The nutrient content of some of these foods is quite impressive. For example, David Wolfe lists the nutrients found in the camu camu berry: “calcium, phosphorus, potassium, iron, the amino acids serine, valine, and leucine, as well as small amounts of the vitamins thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin.” Duke University ranked hundreds of botanicals in order of effectiveness for various health conditions. The Camu Camu berry was ranked the number one botanical for colds and the number six antiviral botanical.
5. Don’t be afraid of fat
We all know we should eat “healthy fats” for more energy, weight loss, and heart health. However, I believe we all still have a deep-seated fear of fat instilled in us by a lifetime of input from the media, doctors, and misguided weight loss programs. First, let me give my definition of a healthy fat. A healthy fat is one that has a long history (more than a few thousand years) of use in the human diet. Unrefined coconut, olive, and sesame oils are the most familiar oils in our modern diet that have ancient historical uses. Coconut oil has been used by tropical cultures for centuries and is made up of medium-chain fatty acids, which have the same molecular structure as the fatty acids found in human breast milk. This type of fat fuels our metabolism and immune system efficiently and effectively. According to Wikipedia, “the first recorded olive oil extraction is known from the Hebrew Bible and took place during the Exodus from Egypt, during the 13th century BC.”
Sesame oil is a seed oil, and seed oils generally do not hold up to time and oxygen very well; however, “the high content of vitamin E and antioxidants in sesame seed oil makes it resistant to rancidity,” according to Sally Fallon Morell in her book Nutritional Traditions. Newer oils, such as blends of vegetable, soybean, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed, and canola oils, as well as refined versions of healthy oils, such as refined coconut oil, are said to be rancid and oxidized when they arrive. to the grocery store shelf because they don’t resist oxidation well during the extraction process. There’s a reason we as humans didn’t try to extract these oils when health was more important than money!
Ghee, butter, and (gasp!) lard are the other fats that have a long-standing place in the human diet. Traditional cultures collected butterfat from cows or goats in the summer to eat during the winter months. We now know that this was a source of vitamin d for them when the sun was scarce.
It seems to me that the very diseases that are attributed to these traditional fats, such as heart disease, have only risen to alarming levels in the last century. This increase in disease coincides with decreased consumption of some of these fats, including lard and butter, and increased consumption of oils such as canola, soybean, grapeseed, sunflower, and safflower. We need fat for many essential biological processes in the body, including but not limited to: cell membrane function and cell membrane structural integrity, fueling the brain and body for long-lasting energy, and providing building blocks for immune cells, hormones and healthy functioning. nervous system.
May you be blessed with good food and good health always! Enjoy!